Cold Regret
by Luna the Zekrom
Summary: As the NightWings prepare to invade the Rainforest Kingdom, Queen Battlewinner contemplates the mistakes she's made, how she's gotten to where she is now, and the small fragments of hope that are left for her in the future.


**AN: Hello, everyone! For those who were involved in my poll, sorry for the wait! For everyone, I hope you're doing well. I wish you all a Happy New Year!**

 **Disclaimer: Spoilers for the Wings of Fire books up to** ** _The Dark Secret_** **.**

I miss seeing the sky, splattered with stars like silver paint against a black canvas. I haven't seen it in twenty-three years. That's how long I've been trapped in this crater, the lava keeping me alive in a world that might be worse than death.

The last time I saw the sky, I was too preoccupied to notice its beauty. I was on a mission to defeat the IceWings once and for all. I believed I could do it when others had only failed for centuries, for I was Battlewinner, my mother's sole heir, and the name she gave me couldn't be anything but a promise.

That thought was arrogance. But I didn't realize that until I flew into battle, roaring in challenge, and my IceWing counterpart looked me straight in the eyes and blasted a bolt of freezing death down my throat.

That was Queen Subzero.

She'd had years more experience leading her tribe than I did mine, and she didn't take my attack nearly as seriously as I did. To me, it was everything, my chance to end the war and make it safe for us to return to the mainland. To her, it was almost amusing. I know that because right before she used her frost-breath on me, her jaws curled up ever so slightly, in some kind of cruel smile.

It was one of those moments that stays in your mind for the rest of your life, preserved in perfect detail, because it hits you that hard.

I was the first NightWing, the first dragon of any tribe, to invade the Ice Kingdom. Their Great Ice Cliff only protects them from an invasion from the mainland. We flew in against the backdrop of a glittering night sky, righteous avengers from the north.

To them we must have appeared wraithlike, perfectly camouflaged. IceWings can't see well in the dark. They couldn't see us coming at all. I know that because I planned it that way. This was my first major battle, staged only a few months after I took the throne. But I had been planning it for years, done all the research I could.

How could it have gone so wrong?

Simple. My own stupid arrogance.

We could have descended upon them without warning. Their light globes from that magical tree wouldn't have helped them see us until it was too late and the queen of the IceWings was already dead. But I wanted to make an impression. I wanted them to know who had defeated them, the glorious new queen of the Night Kingdom.

"I am Battlewinner, queen of the NightWings," I announced, landing in the snow in front of Subzero. I was still young then, but I had always been a massive dragon, and I towered over her as I stood there triumphantly, completely confident. "Our two-millenia war ends here. And I am going to destroy you all."

Subzero eyed me with contempt. "You foolish dragon. Just remember later, when you count your dead, that you brought this upon yourself."

"Attack!" I roared, and my troops fell upon our enemies from the sky.

A moment later, the queen's white scales were blocked out by dark wings as three of my warriors mobbed her. The last image I had of her then was a furious snarl as she whirled to face them, before I turned and leapt into the fray.

For one single, elated moment, it seemed like everything was going well.

I'd brought every NightWing of fighting age with me, including my older daughter, Intelligence. But life on the volcano was treating us harshly. The IceWings outnumbered us. And they were fighting on their own territory, fighting for their lives.

If we'd ambushed them, we would have won.

But even the minute I'd spent boasting was enough time for them to prepare.

It couldn't have been more than five minutes, as I grappled with an IceWing in the air, before I heard a roar. "Battlewinner! I hope you're watching!"

I punched my enemy in the snout and turned to see Subzero's gaze searching for me. It was easy to see her because the area immediately surrounding her was free from fighting. Black corpses were silhouetted against the snow.

But even with that horrible sight, my gaze was immediately drawn to Subzero. She had Intelligence in a headlock; my daughter was lashing out with her wings and tail and claws, but she couldn't break free from the much larger dragon's grasp.

As her dark blue eyes found mine, Subzero gave a grim smile, and her ridged claws slashed with terrible finality across Intelligence's throat. My daughter's scream died as her vocal cords were severed.

A moment later, she fell limply to the ground. The snow around her, already tinted purple from the mingled bloodshed, was quickly dyed a vivid crimson.

The howl that left my throat was like no sound I've ever heard before or since.

"I'll kill you," I screamed, flaring my wings. Flames gathered in my jaws. "I swear to the three moons that I'll rip you apart."

I blasted fire at her, and Subzero leapt back out of reach, her scales sparkling amber as they reflected the light from my attack. She still didn't fly, and so I swooped down to meet her instead, roaring in hatred and fury.

My jaws were wide open.

Hers curled in a smile, frost swirling from between her teeth.

The image stamped into my brain, and a moment later I felt pain pierce through my whole body. I didn't even see the bolt of ice. One moment she was smiling, and the next I was doubled over on the ground in the snow. I didn't feel the cold against my scales. All I could feel was the cold inside me, so painful I couldn't breathe.

Subzero stepped closer, until I could feel her breath, still relatively cool, against the back of my neck. "I could snap your neck," she breathed. "But I think that would be too much of a kindness. Goodbye, Battlewinner. You'll be dead in a few hours."

With that, all of us knew that the battle was over.

"Retreat," I hissed, and I was shocked by how raspy and weak my voice sounded.

I don't remember getting up and turning away, though now I imagine that the eyes of the IceWings must have lingered on our backs as my dragons retreated. My mind must have been numb, all thoughts deafened by the overwhelming cold.

But I do remember Morrowseer flying alongside me as I trembled like a leaf.

"Your Majesty," he said. "Your Majesty, let someone carry you."

"No," I said, my voice cracking. "I have to do this on my own."

He didn't say it, but I didn't need our tribe's legendary mind-reading power to know that he was wondering why it mattered, when I might not even make it back.

Before we were halfway across the sea, I felt a weight in my belly as the ice solidified around my intestines. Still, I flew on.

I don't know what I was thinking. Logically, there was no point in making it back. Nothing there could save me. But I flew as if possessed, one wing beat after another, even as whorls of ice began to form on my tail and my talons, and the tips of my wings.

To this day, I don't know how I made it.

Just as the island came into sight, the ice began to spread to my chest, closing in around my lungs. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to do anything. Each beat of my heart sent a jolt of pain through my whole body.

 _I won't let Subzero win,_ I thought, flying on instead of angling my wings to descend to the shore with the others. _I'm going to die, but it won't be the ice that kills me._

"Where are you going?" Morrowseer called, worriedly, but I ignored him.

I flew onward towards the volcano, which was slowly but steadily trailing smoke into the now permanently overcast sky. _It would have killed me anyway,_ I thought, _when it erupts_. Give or take a few years, what was the difference? The same volcano that will one day wipe out our tribe would take my life first.

 _I'm a NightWing,_ I thought, struggling to breathe. _I will die like a NightWing. No IceWing can take that away from me._

I was aiming for the volcano, but I never made it. I wobbled and fell out of the air, outside the palace. My wings were too heavy with frost to carry me any further.

They were so frozen that I couldn't fold them. They were locked rigidly into the position that I'd been holding them in as I flew. Any attempt to move them now made the muscles scream in pain, so I gave up. Since my legs weren't frozen yet, I walked instead.

 _No matter,_ I thought, trembling so forcefully with cold that I could barely walk. _It doesn't… have to be… the caldera. There's lava… all over… this… accursed… island…_

My thoughts began to blur as the cold fused everything together. There were no words left, no clear images. Only a nonsensical string of regrets. Somehow, the goal, to kill myself by lava, stuck in my head enough for me to stumble to the cave which had flooded the last time the volcano erupted.

My vision began to accumulate black spots from oxygen deprivation.

As I distantly felt warmth pool around my feet, I finally allowed myself to collapse, closing my eyes with a sigh that got stuck in my frozen lungs. The frantic determination which had gotten me back home ebbed.

If this was death, it didn't feel so bad. The lava felt warm and relieving rather than blisteringly hot; I couldn't even feel the pain of my scales being burnt away.

I thought my soul was slipping into the afterlife, because the pain in my chest began to ease. I could breathe again, and I gratefully gulped in air. I found that my previously icy wings, though sore from the flight back, could move now.

But after a moment, it became clear I wasn't dead.

If I had been, all the pain would be gone. But my throat still ached from the buildup of ice. Even through the heat of lava against my scales, the pit of my stomach still felt cold.

"Your Majesty?" asked a voice, and I saw Morrowseer standing over me.

"Alive," I rasped. It still hurt to talk.

"How is this possible?" he asked, eyes widening.

I was as surprised as he was. I hadn't expected to survive.

I still ached all over, but it seemed that I wasn't going to die, at least not right away.

"Hot," I said, gesturing to the lava and then pointing down my throat. "Cold."

"A balance," Morrowseer said, looking uncharacteristically stunned. He backed away from the pool of lava I was still lying in. "I—I'll get you a doctor. Maybe you should go in deeper. Completely submerge yourself."

I forced my stiff muscles to nod, and I dragged myself forward. It was agony, but the thought that I'd already survived the impossible kept me going.

I'd fought two great battles in my life. The first, for the throne. The second, against the IceWings. I'd won the first and lost the second. Now my third battle was starting, a battle to stay alive in spite of my icy wounds.

The doctor had never seen anything like this, but the tribe scientist figured it out. Mastermind warned me that if I ever left the lava, even for a few moments, the ice would finish its work. But as long as I didn't leave it, the lava would most likely hold the freezing death awaiting me indefinitely at bay.

After a few days passed, it seemed he was right. I would live.

Having survived, though, was only a small victory.

I'd lost Intelligence, my heir. Now, all I had left was Greatness, the spare, who was never supposed to become queen. I had spent all these years preparing Intelligence to be my successor, not her. Greatness had never had the mentality, nor the desire, to be queen. She and Intelligence had been immensely close, closer than any heirs had ever been, because only one wanted to be queen and knew her sister would never challenge her.

Greatness was a young dragonet when the battle had ended in disaster. She didn't fully understand what had happened to her sister, nor what had happened to me.

But she's had to speak for me ever since.

My voice never recovered. I could speak, but not audibly, and doing so hurt.

I didn't want anyone to see or hear how weak I'd become, so I chose to live behind a screen, speaking directly to Greatness, who relayed my words to my council.

I've been ashamed of my actions in that battle ever since.

And while I continuously take her lack of queenliness out on Greatness, deep down I blame myself. If I had never stopped to gloat, Intelligence might not have died. Subzero wouldn't have been able to get her claws on her, because the queen of the IceWings was my first target and she would have been the first to die.

The only way to make up for my failure then is to get revenge, once Mastermind perfects the armor which allows me to leave the lava.

The one thing my injuries have taught me is that nothing is impossible if you're creative enough. I never thought lava would save me, but it did. And now I know that there must be some way to bring its scalding protection away from our island. It's just a matter of time before Mastermind figures it out.

Admittedly, though, time is something we're running short on.

On that day twenty-three years ago, in the back of my cold-addled brain, some part of me had wondered if the world would accept a sacrifice, if my diving into the caldera would appease the volcano and make it decide to spare the rest of my tribe.

But no. It wasn't a living creature.

There was no reasoning with it. No stopping it.

As I remain submerged in the lava, I can't hear anything, but I can feel the rumble of the volcano and know that someday soon, it will erupt. For the first time, I wonder if our calculations were incorrect. Perhaps we won't have time for the prophecy we wrote to come true. Perhaps one day I will wake up only to have the cave collapse on my head. Taking the Rainforest Kingdom has become even more crucial.

But despite the apparent urgency, I feel like there's a reason I survived. I lived, even when I thought surviving was impossible. And I keep living, even though I have forgotten what it's like to not be cold, to not be in constant pain. And living, I am forced to admit, sometimes feels more like torture than a gift.

But I have to keep living. I have to save my tribe. I know Greatness isn't up to it, and I can't rest until I know that my NightWings will survive.

I'll never get revenge on Subzero.

I know that because she's dead now. I hear that her daughter, Glacier, has taken the throne sometime in the years that have passed since that fateful day.

I've never met Glacier, but I'll always hate her.

She stole any dreams of vengeance I could've ever clung to.

But I can still have a second chance to end the war. Once Mastermind figures out how to simulate the effects of the lava and we take over the Rainforest Kingdom, I can make my tribe strong again. And then one day, I can still defeat the IceWings. I can still live up to the name my mother gave me.

Right now, I'm waiting beneath the surface of the lava as my dragons prepare for battle, feeling the pulse of the volcano's ominous heartbeat beneath my claws. We cannot afford to postpone it another day. Tonight, whichever way this goes, for better or worse, I will be free of my volcanic prison once and for all.

I feel a small spark of hope.

Perhaps, tonight, I will see the stars again.


End file.
